Athens, National Archaeological Museum

Q637187

That was not very clever: visiting the National Archaeological Museum on the last day of a two week trip through northern and central Greece. Of course, it was a nice summary of everything we’ve seen, but I think it would have been better to start over here. Ever a teacher, I might have used the museum’s splendid collection of sculpture to explain to my companions the development of Greek art.

That’s what you’ll find on the first floor: lots of sculpture in a series of rooms surrounding a large hall, which is devoted to Mycenaean art. There, you will find the golden objects from Mycenae that Schliemann found. The sculpture rooms surround it. Your tour starts with some kouroi and you can easily follow the growth to greater accuracy in representing the human body. When you’ve finished about a third of your tour, the Greek sculptors have mastered every aspect of anatomy, and you will pass along many classical sculptures, including two dazzling copies of the Diadumenus and the Cnidian Aphrodite. After that, more sculpture: the fourth century, Hellenism, and finally the Roman age.

On the ground floor, there’s also a series of rooms that contain metal art. Here, you will see the Anticythera Mechanism, but also collections of arrowheads from Marathon and Thermopylae. The Egyptian part – also on the ground floor – is a bit odd in a museum dedicated to Greek art, but the collection is too small to be exposed in a museum of its own and too important to keep stored away. In the Hellenistic part of the Egyptian collection, I noticed a statue of Hephaestion that I had never seen before.

Upstairs, you will find a marvelous collection of pottery and some objects that don’t fit anywhere else, like the Lemnian inscription, written in a language related to Etruscan. Next to it is a section dedicated to the investigations at Santorini, where some splendid frescoes have been found.

Do not forget to visit the basement. There’s a little café with a garden, where you will see some of the sculptures found in the Anticythera wreck. They have a certain beauty because they are partly eroded. I found the giant Heracles absolutely fascinating.

This museum was visited in 1989, 1992, 2004, 2007, 2010.

76 pictures related to this museum

Nysa, Bouleuterion, "Little Refugee"	Athens, Varvakeion Athena	Mycene, Boar's tusk helmet	Athens, Kerameikos, Alexander with a Lion's Pelt
Marathon, Arrowheads	Thermopylae, Arrowheads	The fight for the body of Patroclus.	Artemisium, Statue of Zeus
Lebadeia, Relief of Trophonius	Piraeus, Funerary stela with ball players	Megara, Statue of Dionysus	Mycene, House of the Warrior Krater, Warrior Krater
Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of antelopes	Hellenistic ruler	Aegina, Ptolemy VI Philometor	Eretria, Lekythos (Bosanquet Painter)
Olympia, Head of the boxer Satyros	Zeus and Ganymedes	Epidauros, Temple of Artemis, Nike	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of boxers
Melos, Statue of Poseidon	Argos, Relief of the Doryphorus of Polykleitos	Dodona, Figurine of Zeus Keraunos	Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Head of Hera
Athens, Kerameikos, Base of the statue of a wrestler	Corinth, Plate with Demeter	Athens, Temple of Zeus, Portrait of Polemo of Laodicea	Argos, Theater, Statue of Aphrodite
Oropos, Aeolian-Ionic capital	Eleusis, Tombstone of a warrior	Sparta, Statue of Julia Aquilia Severa, damaged after her death	Athens, Kerameikos, Dipylon krater
Piraeus, Funerary stela of Damasistrate	Argos, Heraion, Amazonomachy	Megiste, Bellerophon sarcophagus.	Athens, Stoa of Attalus, Attalus II Philadelphus
Argos, Heraion, Sima	Aegina, Tombstone of a young man, holding a bird	Smyrna, Portrait of Caligula, reworked to resemble Titus	Lemnos, Tombstone of an Etruscan (?) warrior
Lycian portrait of Omphale	Corinth, Relief of a hoplite	Athens, Kerameikos, Skull of Myrthis	Thebes, Head of Artemis
Alexandria, Alexander the Great (part of a group with Hephaestion)	Athens, Statue of a Minotaur	Athens, Agora, Late Geometric pyxis	Sais, Temple of Neith, Statuette
Athens, Kerameikos, Siren	Piraeus, Votive stela of a reclining Dionysus	Eretria, Gymnasium, Statue of Cleonicus	Lead figurine of Athena
Pharsalus, Krater with a four-horse chariot	Eucratides II of Bactria	Eleusis, Relief of Demeter, Triptolemus, and Kore	Piraeus, Theater, Head of Dionysus (classicizing)
Piraeus, Julian the Apostate	Mycene, Wall painting of a griffin with a warrior	Piraeus, Statue of a woman or Demeter	Mycene, Wall painting ("La Parisienne")
Larisa, Tombstone of Polyxena	Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Palladion	Athens, Pnyx, Lenormant Athena	Aegina, Temple of Apollo, Statue of a wounded warrior
Piraeus, Head of a bearded god	Thebes (?), Block statue of Prince Horwedja, governor and high priest in Heliopolis	Thebes, Tombstone	Megara, Statue of a Roman emperor (Trajan or Hadrian)
Chalcis-Vromousa, Head of a woman (Roman copy of a Greek original)	Decree of Tefnakht	Mycene, Dagger with lion hunt	Gomphoi, Relief of Odysseus and Amphicleia
Alexandria, Hephaestion (part of a group with Alexander)	Eleusis, Temple F, Cecrops and Herse	Larisa, Tombstone of a man with a hat	Eleusis, Relief of a drunk Heracles